Doctor of Business Administration DBA

The DBA develops critical reflective practice skills, by developing advanced research skills applicable in leading-edge areas of business, and by providing the opportunity to develop a rigorous doctoral research project focussed on your role as industry leader and change-maker.

Our DBA is designed for active senior managers and executives in any organisation - public, private, third sector or consultancies who want to gain new insights and perspectives into organisational and industry leadership and management based on critical exploration of their own evolving professional practice. A key role is played by the capstone research project, which enables you to bring about evidence-based changes and to introduce new perspectives to your professional practice, or to your organisation or sector.

Course highlights

• It is the professional equivalent of the academic PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), but designed specifically to support participants in undertaking practice-based research into their organisation and industry. While the knowledge gained from this research is equally rigorous to the PhD, it is distinctive in that the participant is placed at the centre of their research investigation, and their findings tend to be highly applicable within their organisation, sector and within their community of professional practice.
• The DBA focuses on developing participants' individual capabilities as reflective practitioners, and through this enhancing their capability for undertaking high-level, practice-based research within their own workplace.
• Participants' study projects are tailored to meet their individual needs and interests, and those of their organisations and sectors.
• The final output of the DBA can be a thesis, which reports on the research undertaken, or an artefact (for instance, a product or a service, a training course, or an app), accompanied by a critical commentary that explains the doctoral-level research behind it.

What will you study on the DBA Doctor of Business Administration?

The course is divided into three main stages: the first and second last for a minimum of 9 month each, and the third continues for a minimum of 30 months.

In the first stage you will be engaging in dialogue with supervisors, in a process of critical reflection of your professional practice and of your context, both of your organisation and of your industry. In a parallel way, you will be introduced to research design, methodologies and theories, which you will continue to hone in stage two.

Stage One Review 

(9 months) you will discuss with a panel a 5000-word critical reflection of your practice and your context that engages with relevant literature and theories.

In the second stage, you will gain a more advanced understanding of the methodologies that you can bring to study your professional practice and context and you will design a research proposal, solidly grounded in the academic, professional and methodological literature.

Stage Two Review 

(18 months) you will discuss with a panel your 10,000 words research proposal, which will include a process of collection of empirical data or a cycle of product development.

(Note: you can exit the programme with an MProf,  a research award at Master’s level, by undertaking review stage 1 at 9 months and review stage 2 at 12 months)

Third stage of the programme of study

You undertake a major research project that is current to your organisation or your sector and that has identifiable practical applications and impact. Your final thesis will be 65-80,000 words long. If you present an artefact, the critical commentary for it will be 35-40,000 words long.

This stage with the submission of your doctoral project and with a viva examination with a panel that will include examiners external to the University. This panel will decide on the awarding of the doctorate.

Throughout the course, which is studied part-time, your focus will be on your professional activity in an organisational or industry context. The DBA provides a structured framework for critically understanding your professional activity, and equips you to operate as a reflective professional practitioner. The research project provides an opportunity for you to critically evaluate the learning you achieve while leading significant change in the workplace, and to express this in writing in a systematic way that is both informed by and informs relevant theory.

The Middlesex DBA recognises that professional practice is grounded in real organisations, in which the context is often interdisciplinary, and that practitioners taking the course will often belong to specific professional bodies. In order to recognise and harness the subject- and profession-specific nature of practitioners' individual practice, those taking the DBA will be encouraged to build learning relationships with other candidates working in similar spheres of activity.

Specialist subject and professional advice will be available from expert and highly experienced staff within the Business School, especially in the following areas:

• Organisational Development & Culture
• Change Management
• Sustainable Business
• Leadership Development
• Entrepreneurship
• Finance
• Human resource management and development
• Management and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
• Marketing
• Tourism
• Executive coaching